Elias continued his journey in the car with Isabella, still shocked that she saw him in the flesh once more... still visibly shaken, especially after she saw his scar from the great war...a scar that was almost more recognisable than his gaunt face...Elias was hungry, he was weak, and he hadn't eaten or drank properly in what seemed like forever. Isabella could see how dangerously underweight he was, and could clearly see from her eyes that he was in a bad way...

'You need a doctor...I'm taking you to a doctor' she said...

Elias reached out his hand,, leant over Neil and squeezed Isabella's hand tightly...'take me to your Left Hand, Stephen...I know he's a doctor and can get me the help I need...I'm sorry you ever had to see me like this...but I had to reach out, when the time is right I'm going to explain everything to you, and explain how and why I've been missing for so long...just know it's nobody in our family putting us at danger...so rest assured with this news at least.' 

Elias lent back into the car seat and let himself become almost absorbed by the soft leather...he didn't have much strength, and the gentle rocking of the suspension was enough to make him pass out once again.

Isabella watched Elias rest and she was beyond words.  She had a million things to ask, and much more to say.  She couldn't make herself accept this.  It was surreal to say the least, and so that was probably why she did as she was asked.  She told her driver to take them to The Ivory Tower Headquarters.

Once there, she sent a runner to fetch Stephen Strange.  She knew it would be a shock to him as well, not only seeing Elias like this... but seeing him at all.  They'd been friends, Stephen & Elias, and the trauma of having him back like this would be as poignant to him as it was to her... she had no doubt.  

Silently she sat in the back seat, holding Elias' hand, waiting for Stephen to join them.

Stephen was resting in the kitchen when a runner of Isabella's come rushing in "Come quick, Isabella needs you urgently!" Without a second thought stephen jumped out of his seat and ran out to find her.

Stephen met Isabella and she was standing with Elias, he was in a bad way he needed medical attention urgently he looked at Elias.

"I told you that you needed help! I told you, why didnt you listen."

Stephen took Elias from Isabella and placed him on a bed in a spare room. He left the room to go grab some supplies and come back, he was caught by surpised so he was not prepared, he quickly attached and IV to Elias, this will help with he dehydration and hopefully bring some colour back into his skin. He then prepared a antibactrial soloution and dabbed into on a cloth, he looked at Isabella,

"You may want to hold his hand, his wounds are infection and this is going he hurt like hell."

Stephen soaked the wounds in the solution he made up and gave them a proper clean, he could see Elias winch in pain, he finally cleaned and dressed his wounds with bandages. Elias was resting, he looked like he was sleeping Stephen lent over to Isabella.

"His going to be fine, you may want to get some rest yourself i can stay here with him."

"I told you that you needed help! I told you, why didn't you listen."  Stephen said.  Isabella blinked and did a double take, unsure if the man had misspoke or if she misunderstood.  She was silent as she tried to figure out the truth of the matter allowing Stephen to take Elias from her and place him in one of the first floor spare rooms.  

As the doctor hooked up an IV, she simply stared, her mouth hanging slightly agape as her brain worked through all the possibilities.  If she had been a cat, her fur would have been standing on end and she might even have hissed at both men.  

"You may want to hold his hand, his wounds are infection and this is going he hurt like hell."

Isabella hadn't expected Stephen to speak to her and so had to snap her head back into the moment.  She nodded dumbly and went around his bedside and took his hand.  She gave it a gentle squeeze and allowed him to do his best to squeeze back as Elias reacted to the painful process.  He was a frightful sight.  She didn't want to leave him alone and yet another part of her wanted to run far away from this situation as fast as she could.  To her father?  No. He was sleeping now, after a busy day with the baby's baptism.  Him and Marie shouldn't be disturbed for the night.  But something WOULD have to be done.  

"His going to be fine, you may want to get some rest yourself i can stay here with him."

She walked over and whispered to Stephen, "I'll post guards.  No one but you should spend time with Elias for now.  Not ... not yet.  For his," And our, she thought, "safety."

She walked around the bed to Elias' side again.  She looked down at him with pity and hurt in her eyes.  Carefully, she came down to kiss his lips - savoring the feel of lips she thought to never kiss again - even though they were still so pale and weak. 

"I won't let hurt you ever again, Eli.  I swear it."  She whispered and grimly added,  "They'll pay for this.  All of them." 

As she walked past Stephen she said, "I'm going... out." 

She stopped outside the door and gave orders to several associates, they were to work in shifts and no one save her was to relieve them of the duty they had... they would die before letting anyone come in to speak with Elias.  Only Dr. Strange was to see him - and if they violated her request, she'd put them in a grave personally.

It would be dawn before Isabella returned back to Headquarters.

For what seemed like hours that Elias was sleeping, he slowly woke...and found Stephen sitting next to him...he was hooked up to all types of tubes, and there was clearly a lot of effort from the Dr that was ensuring Elias would recover from his incredible ordeal quicker than he had hoped for..he held out his hand and shook Stephens firmly, he was already starting to get some strength back....'my brother, I can't express enough gratitude for what you've done for me this past week, I couldn't turn to anyone else but you, and you've done everything in your power to keep me alive, and I really appreciate it. I hope someday in the near future I can repay this faith.'

'Where's Isabella' Elias asked Stephen...'I can imagine this is all too much for her to take in right now..she literally believes she has seen a ghost...and why wouldn't she...the last time she saw me I was being beaten up ten on one with the FBN, I wouldn't of stood a chance....I had to buy her time...to keep her safe...and truth be told I wished they had of killed me that day instead of taking me prisoner...I will seek vengeance on the people responsible...these past six months have been hell, daily beatings, I've been drinking one cup of water every 3 days, and only get one meal a week...well I say meal....it wasn't something you'd even feed a dog. Promise me brother, if anyone from the FBN catches up with me, you'll shoot me yourself...there's no way I can go back to that hell hole ever again.'

"No one's taking you anywhere unless they go through me first."  Isabella said firmly as she stepped through the doorway.  She's come home, showered, and changed since her outing.  While she still wore Elias' grandmother's ring, it now felt like a heavy burden upon her - a constant reminder that NOTHING about this whole situation was going to be good or easy.  She almost wished she'd shoved it down Enzo's throat and choked him to death on it.

"Dr. Strange, I'd like some privacy for Elias and I please?"  As he stood up and walked to the door she grabbed his arm before allowing him to exit.  She kissed his cheek.  "Thank you for helping him back to health.  I KNOW I can always count on you."  Her eyes regarded him intensely, searching him for some sign she'd previously missed that he'd turned traitor on them all - though standing here with him that felt impossible.  "Please wait for me in my office so we can discuss his prognosis for recovery.  In fact... call my father & Calimero and let them know of this turn of events.  I want them both to join us later today."

Isabella wanted to tell him all her fears, to threaten him, to beat him... the dragon Gavin had called her, was stalking restlessly just beneath her skin.  He wanted to bite someone.  She didn't know who just yet, but someone should pay for all the pain and suffering that she was enduring and certainly for Elias' pain.

She let Stephen leave and shut the door behind him.  She then made her way to Elias' bedside and gently bent to kiss him.  It was an innocent thing, but the communication of her heart break and love for him were conveyed.  "My Love..."  She breathed the words, as naturally as breath as their lips parted.  A part of wished she could take the phrase back, but she would not apologize for her heart even if this all ended tragically.  She took up his hand and let her thumb stroke it the back of it gently.  

"I never thought I'd see you again."  It was the first words she could think to say.  She wished she'd had some poet expression of love or adoration... instead, all she had was her absolute shock - still.

Stephen was shocked when Elias awoke he sat up and went to him, Elias shook his hand a thanked him.

"No need to thank me, it is what brothers do, but i told you not to leave the apartment untill you was better, you never listen do you." 

Stephen walked over to change Elias he stood over him 

"Tell me one thing, who did this to you? Together we can find them."

Just as Elias was about to answer Isabella walked in, she asked to be alone with Elias, Stephen was more than happy he was no longer needed here and Elias was doing fine on his own, he walked over to the door. He left shutting the door behind him and heading back to the HQ, he was hoping Isabella would go easy on Elias he had been through alot.

Isabella listened to everything Elias said intently.  For the most part, she believed what he had to say, but she never would have expected him to have told her an outright lie.  Whether advised by the Feds or just out of his own love of her, she knew Elias could never lie about everything... but he had lied.  He'd laid there, holding her hand and lied.  Surely he felt he had no other choice.  Perhaps he saw nothing else that could be done... but he had done it none the less and in doing so, he shattered her heart into a thousand glittering pieces.

White hot tears rolled silent from brown eyes and carved out lines on her face.  She trembled as he took up her hand and kissed the ring - the symbol of what their love should have been:  FOREVER.  If his 'death' had taught her anything at all it was that one could love someone they could not be with, fiercely and she strongly suspected that regardless of how she found herself resolving this issue... she could never be free of Elias Landucci.  Not ever.

As he begged her to stay with him just a while longer, she refrained from asking her questions or making angry demands.  Her temper, for once, could wait.  Ever so carefully she slid him over in his bed, again stunned by the body mass he'd lost and the ease with which she could move his fraile form, and climbed into the bed beside him.  Isabella wrapped her arms around Elias as gently as she could, resting her head under his arm and along side his chest to listen to his breath, just as she use to at night when they slept beside one another.

Three days ago she thought she'd give anything for just one more chance to hold him.  Two weeks ago she was praying for JUST that.  Exactly and now, God in his wicked sense of humor, had done it.  She would pay a far worse price than Elias' death to have this one final moment together and it gutted her to her core. 

It wasn't much, feeling the warmth of him there with her now, sharing with him the memory of their love - giving him some small bit of comfort... but it was something.  Something was really all they'd ever had.  What they had been allowed to share was always just a small SOMETHING of what might have been.  The damn world had stolen too much from them both, denying her a love that she was sure could never be matched by another's - even the lover who she'd just washed off her skin.

She squeezed him gently and buried her face into his side while she wept.  "I ... I wish we could go for a walk."  She laughed through tears and kissed his hair covered chest.  The man was still more like a giant bear... even half-starved and dehydrated.  Her bear.  She laced her fingers into the curls on his chest savoring the feel and the smell of him.  

"Maybe... maybe I could just sleep here with you... for a while?  Until someone comes,"  she knew her father would eventually arrive and everything she was enjoying now would come to a catastrophic end.  "Or... at least until I can't stand to sleep anymore?  Would that be okay?  I've missed you..." She sobbed and spoke through her tears, "so much."

Elias kissed the head of Isabella, the way he always used too. His own special way...a way that he had never kissed anyone before, and would never again with anyone in the future. He looked into Isabella's dark tear filled eyes and once again found himself lost...'my love, you can stay here for as long as you'd like...I know I would like that. If the Godfather can't make it to me, I'd understand. I know how busy he is with running an entire city, especially with his favoured Don now resting in my arms' Elias mustered a smile together before putting his head down and felt his eyes becoming heavier with each breath that he took in...'Izzy.... I've missed you too darling.'

Isabella closed her eyes and drifted off to dream and in the dream she was drowning in dark water with waves crashing over her - a lightning streaked sky high above.  The dark didn't reveal a ship or a shore.  It seemed as though she was hopelessly lost and no matter how hard she swam or how loud she screamed no one came to her rescue.

A skeleton hung around feet below the waves dragging her down, while a beautiful midnight colored wolf kept snapping its jaws in her face as she'd try to cling to him.  She realized that he was so desperate to avoid drowning in the darkness alone that he might kill them both.  Every now and again she could make out the shape of a moose swimming steadily away from her as a broken dog collar sunk into the black fathoms.

"Gavin?  GAVIN!"  She kept calling out to it, but it seemed to be running from her.  She, the wolf, and the skeleton on her legs were too much for the timid creature.  He wanted nothing to do with any of them, and so he made his way to some unseen safer harbor far away.  Just as he disappeared into the darkness, Isabella's eyes opened and she drew a sharp breath.

Her heart racing, she sat straight up and put a hand to her chest - trembling again she realized.  She looked in the bed beside her and Elias was there.  Still thin and frail... it hadn't been a nightmare... Elias was alive and she was still here, and she still had to decide things - very hard things.  

"I'm sorry... nightmares." She explained.  "I've had them a lot the last few months."  She turned her legs off the side of the bed and put her feet on the floor.

"You should recover more."  She wet her lips, not turning to look back at him.  "I should go talk with Stephen and see how long he thinks it'll be before you're on your feet again..."  She let her voice trail off.  She knew she was stalling.  If Elias recovered and then she had to kill him or send him away - how would that be any easier?  How would he not feel more betrayed?

"But..."  The word was a knife in her throat.  "I don't know that I can."  She turned to face him.

"Six months."  She said flatly, trying to ignore who he was and her feelings for him.  "They tortured... starved and deprived you of water and sunshine.  For six months you were their prisoner and wasted away to... to the corpse I thought you were."  she shook her head.

"I don't hate you for whatever you had to do to survive.  I never wanted you to die for me... but please... please don't lie to me.  You couldn't bend a spoon right now let alone break a neck.  Shit... you couldn't walk into this room.  So, if you tell me what you told them, I'll put you on  ship to Sicily.  I'll buy you a home in the country and, when I'm ready to retire, I'll join you.  We'll have a life together far away from America and whatever wrong you've done the Luciano family.  I'm begging you... please.  Tell me whatever you told them to escape." 

She stepped back towards the bed, "Did you tell you tell them you'd spy on us?  That... that you'd give my father up if they let me have a pass?  Did you ... name names?  Tell information about our operations?  Whatever it is Elias, I'll find away to get us through it."

Elias took a sip of water before taking a big gulp...his adams apple clearly moving quite frantically in his throat... he paused and looked at Isabella. He forgot for a moment how well Isabella knew him, and how well he knew her. This was most of the reasons they fell in love together in the first place...he shook his head and started sobbing into his hands....'You are right Izzy, I can't lie to you. But please don't think I've turned rat on you, or the Godfather. I'd never do that, they could of kept me hostage for 6 years and I still wouldn't ever give up my love, or my family.'

He beckoned onto his bed for Isabella to come back and take a seat, which she obliged, although clearly was pissed off..'I shouldn't of lied to you...the truth is Jack is alive, you're right in saying I couldn't out-muscle anyone in my state currently....hell I can't even lift my glass without two hands....Jack & I built a bond over the weeks and months....I told him my darkest secrets about my past, and about my present, but never anything mafioso related. He was new in the FBN, I could tell he was in a forced position that he felt extremely uncomfortable with. What they were all doing to be was beyond illegal....' Elias smirked before continuing...'not that anything we do here in above board, but we still have morals.....I took the omerta, and it will die with me....I think when Jack realised that he signed up to protect and serve, not imprison and torture...he let me go....freed me, just like that....I warned him that if he let me go, everyone involved in my capture would be killed. I would ensure that my Don hunted them all down like the vermin that they were...I suggested he collect what little belongings he'd built up in his 21 years on this earth and started a new life...and quickly. I gave him the address of my hideout....the same one I took you too all those evenings ago....I told him to take my emergency escape fund, the briefcase containing $5,000. I knew with that I could almost pay back his kindness...I feel I did the right thing by him....but on the flip side I've almost made a deal with the FBN, he was an FBN agent, he may of let me go in the end, and I bought him for that service....I can't help but feel sick to my stomach that I've somehow betrayed everything that I've grown up believing. That's why I lied to you and said I'd killed him. I'm sorry for lying to you my love.'

Elias reached out his hand towards Isabella, and could see she had no interest in taking it back, whilst she was still processing another bombshell that was coming from Elias' mouth.

Isabella nodded, hardening her gaze, trying desperately to keep her emotions in check.  She had to be Don Luciano here... not Isabella.  His betrayal wasn't as bad as she expected, but it wasn't great either - her father wouldn't look kindly on him for saying shit (even inconsequential shit) to the FBN.  In fact, he might still insist on killing Elias if she told him.

"And your father, Enzo?  Did you know that he joined my crew?  Did the FBN send him to infiltrate me?  How did your letter end up slid under his door?  Why not just call me?"

'My Father?' Elias sat up from his bed and turned his face to meet Isabella's..'What the hell does my father have to do with this? I haven't seen that mother fucker for years and years..for all I know he's been dead just as long. Hell it wouldn't be anything other than overdue. You know how much I hated him, and the name he gave me..it's why I changed it. That was a great day, such a burden on my shoulders had been lifted...I had no idea that he was part of the family, and you must believe me Izzy, I had nothing to do with that....why would I? You trust me darling....don't you?'

Elias could tell there was a somewhat frosty atmosphere in the room, one that he'd created...but after the weeks and months that passed, how could he of not made a deal? Even if it was to a agent who was clearly in the wrong profession, and clearly in way over his head. Elias' love for Isabella was as strong as it'd had ever been, but he was starting to lose Izzy the lover, and the room gained Isabella Luciano...the Don of Detroit.

Isabella's eyes narrowed.  His reaction was far more venom filled to his father than worries he was a traitor.  It seemed visceral and real, after all, if it was a show why make more of a fuss over his father than the prior accusations?  No.  He was reacting as a son who hates his dad and so it was knee jerk and genuine.  So... that left only one other question.

"If you didn't give your father the letter which you wrote to me, the one explaining everything... then who did?"

She leaned in and kissed Elias with all the innocence of their first real kiss and then she whispered, "For now I'm the woman standing between you and the world.  In fairness, I can't be more than that today, a lot has happened and it's not your fault."  She looked down sadly.

"The people who did this to us... they'll pay dearly.  You'll have a hand in that, I swear it to you."  She looked down at Elias' grandmother's ring.  "But if you're asking me if we're going to pick up where we left off as though six month hadn't passed... as if I hadn't buried you and nearly died from sorrow... I can't say today and that's a pretty damn helpless feeling for a Don to have."

She wet her lips, "I told your father about us, about how I was going to marry you and about how I love you.  I told him hoping that he might have a kind word for my broken and lonely heart... but he didn't."  Her words were full of pain as she stood up.  "You won't have to worry about him giving you grief anymore ... and I'm not sorry about it a bit.  Not after everything he said to me."

She looked at her hand again, "It's not right I have this still."  She began to take off Elias' grandmother's ring.  "For now you should keep it until we sort things out.  I have to tell my father about you, about the FBN, deal with Stephen's betrayal, and that's to say nothing of six months of my life that I don't even begin to know how to make you understand."

She held out the ring to him, "I don't want to make things harder than they are already.  And I'm not saying I won't put it back on... hell, crazier shit has been happening all over the place in my life these past few months.  I'm just saying that there is more to this than I can explain to you today.  You deserve to know it all before we go forward together... to do anything other than this would be horribly unfair and wrong.  And I'd feel... worse than I already do."

Tears pooled in her brown eyes, "I love you too much to ever mislead you, Elias, even if it would be done with the best of intention.  I can't lie to you.  Never."

Elias looked at his grandmothers ring in the palm of his hand....then across to Isabella's naked left hand, then finally up to her face where her eyes were filling up with tears. He closed him palm and brought it away from her.

'You don't need to say anything else my dear....I can read into what you're telling me. I can't ever hold any blame for you moving on, you thought you were walking in this life without me, and needed someone new to walk with..' 

Elias managed a guilt ridden smile in her direction, squeezed her hand and said 'if he loves you a tenth of what I did...and still do. You'll be happy until the end of your days.' Elias let go of Isabella's hand before turning over in the opposite direction 'I need to get some rest now, if you could leave me to it.' Elias couldn't held but sound angry, but it wasn't at her, and it wasn't at himself either..it was just at life in general, and how fate had thrown a curve ball in his direction at every point. He was destined to never be happy, and never love again. Elias couldn't...and wouldn't put himself through it again. Or would he? He gripped his hand in a fist and starting punching his pillow in anger before injecting himself with enough Morphine to knock himself out.

Isabella sat beside him as she watched him self-administer his morphine, refusing to leave him in his pain.  She couldn't, no matter how easy it would have made things, just turn her back on him.  She wished Stephen hadn't left him drugs that way.  She would talk with him about it.  Before Elias was asleep she explained,  "I'm not sure what I feel to be honest." 

She she sighed realizing she couldn't NOT say something after giving the ring back, with him drifting off, maybe a few words wouldn't hurt to let him know this was far from resolved.

"I've only just started seeing anyone.  One saved me from my own suicidal stupidity and the other was meant to be a weekend fling."  She shook her head.  "One has become a true friend who longs to be more... rather how you were.  While the other..."  She let her voice trail off not sure how to explain Gavin to herself let alone to Elias. 

His smile was burned into her mind, the sound of his voice - she ached to hear it again.  But while she was becoming addicted to the confirmed bachelor, could she say that he loved her even a fraction as much as Elias?  At all?  And even if he did, would he allow it or do everything he could to close himself off to it?  Did she want to go through the trouble of finding out?  With Elias back?  How would she feel if she pursued Gavin in spite of Elias and Will only to be standing on the side of the road like Toothbrush Girl realizing Gavin wouldn't look back?  She would have to go all in on a guy like Gavin - she might lose every hope for happiness to see the measure of such a man.  Could she really do that to herself, to Elias, or to Will?

It was then she realized that Elias' eyes had drifted closed and the drug had carried him away to dreams.  Tears filled her eyes as she watched his hand open and his grandmother ring fall onto the bed.  She picked it up and put in on the table by his bed so it wouldn't be lost.  The sapphires and diamonds glittered at her from their eternal circle and her anger with Stephen grew anew.  It was time to confront him.

Isabella stood up and with each step taking her towards her office, her rage at Stephen grew exponentially.

Stephen arrived back at his place and saw Elias laying on the bed as he had left him, he walked over to him and saw the morphine on the desk that he had used. He shook his head and kicked the bed leg.

"Wake the fuck up, I admire your falling asleep act, do you really think I would of left morphine on the side for you the just use, get the fuck up."

Stephen kicked the bed again he was pissed off not only did this night not go to plan he get a punch in the mouth for his troubles, even pissed off he had a duty of care for Elias and changed the dressings on his wounds and check they were ok and there were no signs of an infection, he stared at Elias again he lay there.

"You got a lot of explaining to do Bro, like where the fuck you have been for the last few months?."